Report: Volt's gas tank is 9.3 gallons; lengthy journeys return 36.5 mpg

A couple of days ago, General Motors announced a Customer Advisory Board for the Chevrolet Volt. The hand-picked individuals, as you may have guessed, were ecstatic to be selected to drive the Volt before the rest of the pack. One member of the board, Colin Summers, asked a question about the Volt's gas tank and the answer that he received should help us uncover a lot.

Summers posted that the tank's size is 9.3 gallons. Now, we've been digging for this info for some time, but The General has been reluctant to offer it up. With Summer's post and other ramblings we've heard, we feel quite confident going with the 9.3-gallon size, for now anyway. With this information in hand, coupled with the fact that GM has, on countless occasions, listed the Volt's range in charge sustaining mode at 300 miles, let's compute some mileage numbers.

Let's say you start the day with a full charge and travel for 340 miles without a stop, your fuel mileage will be a reasonable 36.5 mpg. What if you forget to plug in overnight and embark on a 300-mile trip with a drained battery? Well, that's more like 32 mpg. Not amazing numbers and we all know that the Toyota Prius does a lot better, but can that car travel 40 miles under electric power alone? Nope.

[Source: GM-Volt]